I hope you can find a local pond to observe, now I'm thinking how lucky my boys are to have a pond although they are quite a bit older and end up managing it and the 70 odd fish therein.
As an educator I'm surprised a teacher would expect you to go those lengths since if he/she thought it was acceptable surely they would do it themselves for the benefit of the whole class! Alternatively in my children previous inner urban primary school a gardening club was started and they could have developed a pond therein, just a thought.. or two.
The two with arrows are hatched from their eggs. Completely free of the jelly, they lay on the bottom looking rather inert. During this stage development continues.
Within a day or so they will start to flap their tails, then begin to free swim, quite weakly and for short periods to begin with. When they are strong enough, they will attach themselves to any remaining spawn jelly and start to feed on it for the first few days.
Glad you are enjoying them Bekkie, it can be really fascinating to watch closely. I have considered in the past using web cams to stream the development of frog spawn to the web. It could be a good solution to the problem kids have these days with getting close to wildlife. I need to give it some serious thought for next year. I expect quite a few adults would enjoy it too
Poor quality video (from my phone) showing the hatched larva now able to move, they have swum up from the bottom to attach themselves to the remaining spawn and started to feed:
That's a great idea GemmaJF please do it would be great! Do you change the pond water in the container or use a pump to aerate the container (just wondered since not all of our frog spawn survive the fish and I guess other wild life each year so was thinking I could help them along a bit.
does your school have a noticboard? Maybe there's a parent , who'd clearly live nearby, who has a pond, and perhaps might allow visits?
Just a thought. It's such a shame that simple pleasures we took for granted , back in the day, are, for a variety of reason, not longer available to children. Getting children interested early is vital and the whole frog spawn thing , as Gemma has shown , the changes are so quick I'm sure kids would be fascinated by it.
things are pretty grim for kids these days with regard access to wildlife. I use to do talks for school kids. I had a captive common toad called 'Merlin' who use to be the star of the show.
Sadly it all came to end due to health and safety. The kids were not allowed to handle the toad unless they washed their hands afterwards, but this was still not good enough. There were fears the children would catch some terrible disease.
There is a small risk or reptiles and amphibians carrying salmonellosis - but this is completely mitigated by ordinary hand washing with anit-bacterial soap which I use to take with me.
Sadly though I wasn't even allowed to take the toad into the classrooms in the end.
The fear came about after several kids took tiny terrapins into schools, then put them in their mouths to hide them from teachers. That is one species that is notorious for carrying salmonellosis, but it had a huge knock-on effect.
It is the same with pond dipping, fear that someone might drown, fear that someone will break the law by catching a Great Crested Newt. They could do it quite legally with someone that holds a scientific GCN licence, but these days nobody seems to contact me about it.
It is all good advice I suppose about not moving spawn, not collecting animals from the wild, but I'm amazed how kids take this stuff in. More than once I've been stopped by children whilst conducting wildlife surveys and told it is illegal to handle newts. I never forget their faces when I show them my licence and let them hold a Great Crested Newt, hooked for life. It worries me though that they are just a tiny minority and most will be lucky to even ever see one.
Posts
Hi Aviator,
I hope you can find a local pond to observe, now I'm thinking how lucky my boys are to have a pond although they are quite a bit older and end up managing it and the 70 odd fish therein.
As an educator I'm surprised a teacher would expect you to go those lengths since if he/she thought it was acceptable surely they would do it themselves for the benefit of the whole class! Alternatively in my children previous inner urban primary school a gardening club was started and they could have developed a pond therein, just a thought.. or two.
A new development, first eggs to hatch:
The two with arrows are hatched from their eggs. Completely free of the jelly, they lay on the bottom looking rather inert. During this stage development continues.
Within a day or so they will start to flap their tails, then begin to free swim, quite weakly and for short periods to begin with. When they are strong enough, they will attach themselves to any remaining spawn jelly and start to feed on it for the first few days.
Glad you are enjoying them Bekkie, it can be really fascinating to watch closely. I have considered in the past using web cams to stream the development of frog spawn to the web. It could be a good solution to the problem kids have these days with getting close to wildlife. I need to give it some serious thought for next year. I expect quite a few adults would enjoy it too
Poor quality video (from my phone) showing the hatched larva now able to move, they have swum up from the bottom to attach themselves to the remaining spawn and started to feed:
http://youtu.be/9Dw5Nh3wzTI
Development wise, they now have a distinct head, body and tail and small feathery gills, amazing to think this all happened overnight!
That's a great idea GemmaJF please do it would be great! Do you change the pond water in the container or use a pump to aerate the container (just wondered since not all of our frog spawn survive the fish and I guess other wild life each year so was thinking I could help them along a bit.
You could do either, I just keep them in very shallow trays and out of bright sunlight. The oxygen levels then stay ok.
Aw fab will do if I see any, they disappeared overnight last year so not sure what went on.
Probably the fish or newts, they can munch through an amazing amount of spawn in a night.
does your school have a noticboard? Maybe there's a parent , who'd clearly live nearby, who has a pond, and perhaps might allow visits?
Just a thought. It's such a shame that simple pleasures we took for granted , back in the day, are, for a variety of reason, not longer available to children. Getting children interested early is vital and the whole frog spawn thing , as Gemma has shown , the changes are so quick I'm sure kids would be fascinated by it.
things are pretty grim for kids these days with regard access to wildlife. I use to do talks for school kids. I had a captive common toad called 'Merlin' who use to be the star of the show.
Sadly it all came to end due to health and safety. The kids were not allowed to handle the toad unless they washed their hands afterwards, but this was still not good enough. There were fears the children would catch some terrible disease.
There is a small risk or reptiles and amphibians carrying salmonellosis - but this is completely mitigated by ordinary hand washing with anit-bacterial soap which I use to take with me.
Sadly though I wasn't even allowed to take the toad into the classrooms in the end.
The fear came about after several kids took tiny terrapins into schools, then put them in their mouths to hide them from teachers. That is one species that is notorious for carrying salmonellosis, but it had a huge knock-on effect.
It is the same with pond dipping, fear that someone might drown, fear that someone will break the law by catching a Great Crested Newt. They could do it quite legally with someone that holds a scientific GCN licence, but these days nobody seems to contact me about it.
It is all good advice I suppose about not moving spawn, not collecting animals from the wild, but I'm amazed how kids take this stuff in. More than once I've been stopped by children whilst conducting wildlife surveys and told it is illegal to handle newts. I never forget their faces when I show them my licence and let them hold a Great Crested Newt, hooked for life.
It worries me though that they are just a tiny minority and most will be lucky to even ever see one.